IBD Outdoors (& Indoors): Gardening With IBD During a Pandemic

A lot has gone on in 2020 so far. For me personally, it started with being released from the hospital on the night of New Year’s Eve.

Then shortly after, at the end of February, I came down with COVID-19. Some might say my luck hadn’t exactly improved, as in spring I went inpatient twice to deal with PTSD. The good thing is I haven’t been hospitalized for anything since, so I consider this a blessing.

Staying grounded with gardening

Something that has kept me stable and grounded during major flares and psychiatric events has been gardening. My plants have always been there for me.

They make me feel a little bit of magical confidence as when I returned from one hospitalization to come home to find them all half-dead, I was actually able to bring all but one back to life. It’s something that makes you feel like you can stay on task, use the bathroom when you need to, and come back to it any time you like.

Gardening is soothing and gives me confidence

It’s cathartic. It’s soothing and on really hard days with IBD, I use gardening as a tool for gentle exercise to get my joints a little looser.

As I mentioned, it gives me confidence as I’ve found success gardening and growing my own food from seeds. It’s been a new experience for me, as I love to cook, so it really makes me feel good when my partner comes home to a meal I’ve actually grown and cooked and will nourish his body and soul.

Gardening has also taught me patience; much like you can’t rush a flare and get out of it when you want, plants are also finicky and delicate too. Too much water, you drown them (I still haven’t learned this about cacti..) and with too little water, your leaves or flowers won’t flourish or grow.

Like us, all plants have different needs

Gardening for me has also been symbolic. This year I killed three plants - all cacti. As I mentioned with patience, you can’t rush things. I watered them too much and the base/stem literally hunched over and died.

I had the motherly instinct to water my plant babies every day in order to take care of them, but that's not what they actually needed. I can compare this to unsolicited advice we get from others on how to “control” our IBD.

Finding joy in something on the hard days

Lastly, it’s helped me through quarantining during the pandemic. I’m grateful I had a hobby of sorts or something to keep me held responsible while I recovered from COVID and in the months after.

I’m grateful my plants and flowers have grown so beautiful so it’s lifted my mood as I’ve actually found success doing something that I truly love and enjoy even on my worst days. Something else to rely on me, depend on me, and let me know to keep going.

Support on the bad mental health days

Gardening helps me on bad mental health days, terrible physical health days and it keeps things normal on “regular” days. By using so many of the senses, it truly helps provide a distraction when I am having issues with strictures, worried about passing blood, and watching my weight fluctuate (so unnerving).

Gardening has been a part of my everyday life and is vital for my mental health while dealing with serious medical issues. I’m thankful to have found it and at the end of the day, I love sitting in my rocking chair as I get ready for bed surrounded by all of the beautiful plants and flowers that I grew myself or that I rescued from the store.

I'm grateful I've found something so special to me to distract me from the bad things and to elevate my mood and help me celebrate the good things even more.

Do you garden? Do you grow your own food? How does gardening or planting or sewing seeds make you feel?